


The Windrider

by mad_and_moonly



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 08:22:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/924058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_and_moonly/pseuds/mad_and_moonly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ororo is transformed into a younger version of herself, Remy takes her under his wing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Windrider

There were legends.

Word of mouth mostly-- muttered by men seeking shelter from sudden blizzards or whispered by wives whose husbands were cut down by errant white hot bolts from the heavens. When the men were found to be murderers, and the women were found to be battered the rumors increased tenfold-- rumors that someone, something, some _force_ that killed in the name of justice lived in the valley. There were stories that said that the unmistakable smell of ozone and the crackling buzz of static in the air that would appear and disappear so abruptly was _si asili_ \-- unnatural.

These accusations didn’t roll easily from the villagers’ lips, but were mentioned only in whispers when the weather was too strange to be completely normal-- when the winds turned so sharply for that the meteorologists in Nairobi could not properly calibrate their instruments or when the occasional investigative photojournalist braved crossing the Serengeti Plain only to find that his tip concerning an oasis in the middle of one of the most arid climates in the world was a dead end.

“We are merely lucky.” the people would say to his translator, smiling through clenched teeth with eyes brightened by something like fear. “We are blessed--” they would murmur in fields overrun with richness “-- by our goddess.” So the journalist had traveled through the village for a day, snapped a couple of pictures of how abruptly the sand turned into green pasture, and left-- washing his hands of the experience.  

When David Munroe shuffled into a bar just north of Mombasa, searching for a payphone to alert his editor to yet another article that would never see the printing presses, he by no means expected to find a woman there who, after leading him upstairs for an unforgettable tumble, would pull on her robes, rebraid her curiously colored hair, and declare herself a priestess.

“You must never return here.” she had said-- blue eyes cold and impassive, lofty and level with his own as she stared at him. “Go. And tell no one what you have seen.” Her lip quirked and the thunder rolled just outside of the window-- drowning out the swift beating of his heart.

\-- 

Nine months later, a child was born-- a girl-child, Nafula told her mistress, raising the small bundle up to her mother. N’Dare propped up onto her shoulders and gave the child a cursory once over and smiled-- gorgeous and terrifying all at once with her white hair dishevelled and plastered to her forehead with sweat.

“So beautiful.” N’Dare said, running a hand over the baby’s hair-- hair that matched her own, and her mother’s, and her grandmother’s before her. As the royal family’s midwife, Nafula had seen them all grow to maturity, and in her old age she appreciated this, knowing that the bloodline would continue-- that her people would never know hunger.

“Today, Nafula.” N’Dare said, voice breaking a little from the strain of childbed. “Her duties begin today.”

And the farmers wondered, as the rains stopped coming and their fields dried while a newborn baby wailed in the palace, if the legends were true.

“Ororo.” N’Dare had said, falling against her pillows-- exhausted. “Her name is Ororo.”

“Ororo.” Nafula had repeated. _Beautiful_. The name was fitting, although she didn't dare say so aloud.

 

 

* * *

**PART ONE: PETRICHOR** **  
**

* * *

 

 

 

 

**  
**

**+**

_Kenya_

_The Serengeti Plain_

_June 15th, 1968_

_10:34 PM_

**+**

Nafula waited with bated breath, like all in the rapidly drying valley, for the child’s first show of power. The days lengthened and the villagers milled in their homes, angry at the suddenly barren grounds and the lack of rainfall, and the seeming aloofness of their queen. And Nafula, who was born in the rainy season and raised as an acolyte ever since that day, was ecstatic to hear a roll of thunder punctuate the warm stillness of a cloudless night, echoing across the dust choked earth of the valley. Hesitantly, she began counting:

"One. Two. Three. Fou-"

Her counting was cut short by another low rumble- louder this time and accompanied by a crack of white lightning that rent the sky in two. She furrowed her brow in suspicion. It was possible that the rainy season had come on it’s own-- that her calculations had been wrong.

"One. Two. Th-"

She stopped suddenly and righted herself, her aged body cracking and her muscles groaning in protest. Quickly she moved toward the window, whips of wind tugging at the heaviness of her robes.

She did not jump when the lightning moved closer, glancing off a tree branch and disappearing into the dryness of the parched earth. In the half darkness she saw the charred Baobab tree, its lost limb lay smoking on the ground several feet from its body. The tree was older than she was-- weighing almost ten thousand kilograms and standing taller even than the palace. She watched, unspeaking as the winds escalated, battering the houses in the valley below.

Dervishes of dust and dried branches skittered across the ground outside before being flung aloft by the impetuous arms of the air. Enormous clouds gathered, obscuring the moon and plunging the valley into further darkness, and with the darkness came a chill Nafula felt to the marrow of her bones. She shivered as still more clouds came, flooding the valley with the reverberating growl of thunder. The wind shrieked past her, pealing past her ears- surrounding her body entirely.

She lifted a wondering hand to her cheek, having felt the cold sting of a snowflake.

Her steps were sure and unhurried. Turning from the window she approached the child carefully, wrapping it gently in blankets before lifting it from its cradle. The warm bundle stirred slightly, and Nafula sheltered its body from the gale blustering behind her.

"Shhh." she whispered, rocking the infant lest it wake. The child lifted its hand as if in defiance, it's tiny fist held high in the air.

Nafula watched, frightened, as the Baobab tree was uprooted and blown skyward.

None of her years as an acolyte had prepared her for this. Once the child stopped squirming she hurried to the door. Opening it to the hallway she paused momentarily to brace herself before plunging into the openness of the palace.

Gusts of wind greeted her. Sleet fell from the sky and hail battered the marble of the palace floors.

Nafula hunched her body further as the child began to whimper, attempting to ignore the gray presence of a swirling tornado tearing houses from their roots like wooden toys. Flashes of lightning illuminated the columns of the hall, flinging the night into daytime brightness before again engulfing the valley in darkness. Snowdrifts that had accumulated in her path lowered the temperature further, and Nafula cursed silently as she nearly slipped on the wetness of the palace floor. After regaining her footing she continued walking.

Arduously she labored for the end of the hallway, cursing the openness of the halls, cursing the frailty of her body, Goddess forgive her. At long last she reached the door, genuflecting before knocking.

No answer.

She knocked again only to find the door had been pulled from her knuckles' reach.

Opened.

Nafula looked up into the eyes of her queen. Trembling she presented the swaddled infant. The queen looked down the shivering woman at her feet- distress evident in the rigidness of her posture and the pulse jumping in her wizened throat.

"I never quite get used to this." Nafula said, smiling in the half moon of light the opened door cast into the hall. “You were easier than this one.”

The queen motioned for the trembling Nafula to rise. Only once she was on her feet did she motion for the older woman to hand her the child. Nafula was greeted with a terse smile- teeth contrasting sharply with skin the color of burnt umber.

She stole a glance at the queen's bedchambers. Inside them the night remained as warm and still as it was outside just minutes before. Some gentle perfume wafted from cones smoking on a plate. It filled her lungs and nestled in the back of her throat. _Myrrh_.

N'Dare motioned for Nafula to enter.

N'Dare spoke to the child in low tones, her blue eyes a constant presence on the swaddled one in her arms. Subtly the equilibrium of the room shifted- the air pressure increasing minutely.

Nafula swallowed in an effort to clear her ears.

N'Dare's murmurs ceased as she studied the child's face. Concern marred her lovely features as she listened to the storm raging all about them.

Nafula envisioned the houses in her mind's eye. They flew through the frigid skies like a child's blocks, she thought. Only this room was cocooned in warmth.

The temperature lowered by a degree, snatching her from her musings. A whip of wind lifted the blanket from the bundle now in N'Dare's lap.

Nafula smiled despite herself.

It was true.

The child lay uncovered, her white hair waving slightly in the static that surrounded her. Her eyes glowed a pupilless, eerie white blue.

"Ororo." N'Dare commanded. "Be still."

Outside the massive skeleton of the Baobab tree fell earthward with a crash- the winds propelling it had died.

 

\--

 

The rain fell gently for a glorious month, and the people rejoiced as the valley was made beautiful again.

 

Beautiful.

 

Ororo.

 

Because some legends have names.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so there's kind of a story behind this. 
> 
> I started writing this earlier this year, because I had a great plot in mind, so I uploaded it to FF where it didn't really gain that much traction (It's still there, actually) and this is basically a rewrite of that story with a lot more introspection. 
> 
> The "story" component is that I was having a conversation with my dad in the car one day about 'The Wolverine' that basically started with me saying, "Yeah, Logan is great and all, but when will we get a Storm origin story?" and my dad kept trying to convince me that people would never pay to see it which I think is an abysmal underestimation of the utter goldmine of nuanced character that is Ororo Munroe. 
> 
> I kind of abandoned my original FF post (sorry peeps who were reading it) but I guess this rewrite is a little more of the direction that I intended for the story to go. It was motivated primarily by my dad basically arguing that Storm wasn't interesting enough to have her own movie. 
> 
> Whatever. 
> 
> I also predict that this is going to be LONG. It's slow build, Remy-Ororo and I'm in school full time right now, so I won't have as much time on my hands as I've had this summer, but I'm definitely going to work on it in my spare time. 
> 
> I fucking love Storm, and I REALLY love Storm-Remy (OTP of my life) and I just want this to be accurate and well researched and, well, I'm rambling at this point, but I'm really excited about this. 
> 
> Consider it my magnum opus. 
> 
> Sorry this got so fucking long, but I have a lot of feelings about this, haha. 
> 
> I'll get into tagging it when I get more into the story. :)
> 
>    
> \- O


End file.
